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Kool Tools: BlackBook server-based contact management app

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If you miss Now Contact, you should take a look at BlackBook, an US$99, server-based contact management app from Autriv (http://www.autriv.com). Made on the Mac for Mac OS X it offers a polished, attractive graphical user interface with spiffy visual cooks and an easy-to-learn workflow.

BlackBook’s server-based contact management allows all users to share the same set of contacts via a company-wide address book. From the BlackBook Server — which boasts user lists, permissions, the ability to back up and restore on-the-fly, and data security — you can control who can read contact information, edit contacts, and export/share contacts. Each user can set categories for easy sorting by contact type.

You can link contacts by relationship — and automatically link contacts in the same company. Everyone in the same company will automatically be linked. Plus, you can manually add relationships such as family member, partner, assistant, etc. This lets you jump quickly from one contact to another within the same relationship grouping.

BlackBook offers various back-up options to keep your data safe. It’s built-in CardDAV server makes it easy to get your contacts on your iOS device (a native BlackBook iOS app is in the works that will allow you to update your contacts from your iOS device).

The BlackBook Client is simple to use. Once connected to the server you can use its icons to add contacts, delete contacts and move between contacts.

Sharing a contact with someone else is a breeze. All you need is an email account. Pick the contact you want to share, click File -> Share Contact, and enter your recipient. BlackBook will create a new email for you with a subject line, and attach the vCard for you.

Need to import your old data from another application? BlackBook can import both vCards and tab-delimited text documents. With its field mapper, you can bring in those .txt files in a few clicks. BlackBook Client will import 100 contacts, and BlackBook Server will import all your contacts.

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